One Thanksgiving weekend, my wife, her three sisters, and mother
ventured to a cabin deep in the woods of Hocking county in the
Appalachian foothills of southeast Ohio. They would be renting it for
just two nights and so drove up the long, gravel drive so typical of
country residences with a sense of anticipation. Unknown to them,
nestled in those hills lived a stray tomcat, redneck-thin and just shy of
two years. He lived by his wits and little else, and surely not for
long.
On the first day, my wife's sister Karen walked down that long
spirally drive and noticed the plucky tomcat walking towards her, begging
for attention and food, whichever came first. The owner happened to be in
the vicinity and warned Karen he'd soon be putting a bullet in the cat's
head since he didn't much like strays. She didn't doubt him; he looked
like he was born with a gun and an appetite for killing. She brought him
up to the cabin, and they noticed with amazement the little eight-pound
wonder was not intimidated in the least by our hundred-pound dog, a
German shepherd-mix my wife rarely leaves behind.
The new member of the cabin had dark tiger stripes down the length of his
back and humorous tall legs, one of which was nearly all white and the
other white only to the ankle sock. He looked like he'd gotten up late
for work and put on a calf-length tube sock on the right foot and an
ankle-sock on the left! A respiratory infection had him sniffling and
snorting; his eyes leaked and gave off a shiny glow.
By a process of elimination, all the sisters but one - my wife -
offered reasons they couldn't take the stray in. My wife called and
asked if we could add a second cat to go along with our dog and I
couldn't say no. She returned with the strikingly beautiful new animal
in tow.
The country cat was tough and routinely drove our dog Obi to the
point of insane barking. The little piker was afraid of nothing. But
what name to give him? Long whiteboard sessions led to fruitless
results. Winston, Seamus, Sir Tuneces, Hobbes, Piker, Lazarus all came
and went. His behavior had noticeably cooled since being locked 24-7 in
the family homestead, so it was finally decided that Mr. Hyde would suit
this Jeckel puss. The name was picked hours before his Great Escape,
when he found the door open at 2a.m. and calmly strolled out with the
insouciance of …well, a cat. Our son had not completely closed the back
door and the cat was nothing if not an opportunist. The timing was
especially fortunate for him given that he was scheduled to go under the
knife the next morning and experience the pangs of becoming half a cat -
i.e. neutered.
And so the days went by and an at-large Mr. Hyde made himself
scarcer than a dime in Scrooge's outstretched palm. My wife put Mr. Hyde
on the FBI's Most Wanted Pet list and littered the neighborhood with
posters. She also visited the death camp, I mean kitty shelter, to see
if he had turned up there. Given her obvious determination (and threat
to get another cat), I went to a childhood friend, St. Anthony - the
saint who helps find lost things - and asked if he might help. She went
directly to the Father, a bit sheepishly but knowing that not a hair on
our heads goes uncounted.
The next afternoon, six days after Hyde's disappearance, my wife's
brother Joe was delivering packages for UPS about a half-mile away from
our house and across a busy thoroughfare. A stray tomcat walked right up
the drive towards him, begging for love or food, whichever came first.
Joe, a cat-lover, thought it a disgrace that someone would leave a tomcat
run loose. He remembered my wife Steph was missing her new stray, so he
made a mental note to check a picture she'd emailed him. He went home
and checked it and that was the positive ID he needed. He called Steph
at work and she called me and then rushed to pick up her still sniffling,
still snorting cat. He was back, back from the seeming dead, and
rechristened "Lazarus" for his remarkable rebounding abilities. He
wasn't able to avoid his rescheduled date with the knife though, and so
now Lazarus is less interested in the lady cats in the neighborhood.
Obi, meanwhile, is sharpening his barking abilities while experiencing
the downside of a cat not de-clawed!
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